He had one clue to go on. Elwyn’s last words before she took off across the rugged New Mexican terrain.
Surely, he’d heard her wrong. He prayed he’d heard her wrong as he fought the winds and icy pelts of the desert storm, then raised a fist and pounded on the door of his ex, Marika Dubois.
* * * *
Marika struggled to pull a sage green robe over her shoulders as she hurried to the door. Partly because someone was pounding on it at 3:00 a.m. Never a good sign. But mostly because whoever was pounding on it was doing so rather loudly, and she didn’t relish the thought of trying to get her rambunctious son back to sleep if the noise woke him. The thunderstorm had been bad enough. Now, this.
Whatever reason made some asshole bang on her door at this hour had better be a good one, or so help her…
She swung the door open and stopped short, stunned to find Garrett Swopes on the other side—the very man she’d just this week crossed off her Christmas card list. For good this time.
She felt faint as he towered over her. Damn him. Rain dripped down his face and accommodatingly molded a wet T-shirt to the hills and valleys of his muscles, accentuating each and every one.
It took some effort, but she finally tore her gaze off the imprints his abs made in the black material and forced her eyes back to his face, knowing what she would find there. Hardness. Revulsion. Hatred.
The scowl he wore would suggest he had yet to forgive her.
The scowl she wore would suggest she didn’t care.
“You’re late,” she said, refusing him entry despite the drenching effects of the rain.
How dare he be annoyed? She was the one who’d been startled awake by his knocking—correction, incessant pounding—at three in the morning. If anyone should be testy, it was certainly not the jackass standing before her.
Not that he was there to see her. He was never there to see her. But three in the morning? Really?
“Zaire is asleep,” she added, infusing her voice with as much coldness as she could muster on such short notice. “And you were supposed to pick him up last night.”
Surprise registered in his silvery eyes. The hard lines of his dark face softened for just a second before he recovered.
“You forgot?” she screeched, appalled. Then she remembered her sleeping son not thirty feet away, the door to his room slightly ajar, and forced herself to calm. Welding her teeth together, she glared right back at him. “You’re a real class act, Swopes. Forgetting your own son. Come back when you’re sober.”
He had to be drunk. Or at least well on his way. He would never visit the likes of Marika Dubois in the middle of the night otherwise. He detested her, after all, for several reasons.
First, she’d stalked him. There was really no other word for it. She’d needed a certain type of man from a certain type of bloodline, and he just happened to be that type.
Second, she’d tricked him into getting her pregnant.
And third, she didn’t tell him about said pregnancy. He found out when he ran into her and Zaire a mere month after she’d given birth. Being the seasoned actress that she was, the shock she felt rocket through her at their unexpected meeting danced in glorious Technicolor across her face.
Garrett knew. He knew Zaire was his son, and that she had no intention of ever telling him.
She had her reasons. She was trying to spare him a lifetime of guilt for being an absentee father, for one. But he didn’t want to hear it. He’d never trusted her after that. Probably never would. Yet he’d insisted on paying child support and being in Zaire’s life. A fact that surprised her to this day.
Still, now was not the time to go into it. She pushed the door to close it in his infuriatingly perfect face, but he easily stopped her with a hand on a panel and, God help her, she was almost glad he did. The more he stood there, the more she got to drink in the hills and valleys of his biceps. The expanse of his chest and width of his shoulders. The hard line of his jaw and full curves of his mouth.
She chided her hormones, well, the few she had left as she was quickly approaching the big three-oh, and she’d heard it was all downhill from there.
It clearly took a lot for Garrett to even stand there. His eyes glistened with animosity. He could hardly stomach the sight of her. Could hardly stand being in her presence. Not for the last few years anyway. He made no bones about it.
So, when he bit down and wrenched out the words he probably hated saying as much as she hated hearing—because who didn’t enjoy seething derision on occasion?—it shocked her to the very depth of her being.
“I need help,” he said from between clenched teeth.
“I couldn’t agree more, but I don’t know any good psychiatrists. Now, if you don’t mind…”
She started to slam the door shut despite the fact that their son was asleep in the next room, but he jammed a booted foot between it and the frame to stop her. She looked through the slit, her face the picture of astonishment at his gall.
“I need your help,” he said, his sheepish demeanor so unlike him. He lowered his head, his strong jaw working a double, as he said, “She’s gone.”
“What do you—?” His meaning hit Marika before she finished the sentence. Dread flooded every cell in her body.
She swung the door wide and waved him inside. After closing it, she hurried to the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and handed it to him.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” she asked before sinking onto the divan.
He wiped the rain off his face then draped the towel around his neck. “She disappeared.”
“What do you mean she disappeared?” She tried to keep the panic out of her voice. She failed. Apart from her son, Elwyn Alexandra Loehr was the only thing she loved on this Earth. Besides her grandmother. And the man soaking her carpet, but he would never know that.
“Please, sit down.”
He indicated his clothes with a shrug. “I’m wet.”
She’d noticed. A lot. “That sofa has seen worse.”
“Like?”
“Like your son. Sit.”
He sank down and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I mean, she disappeared. Literally. She was there one second and gone the next.”
Scooting to the edge of her seat, she clasped her hands in front of her to keep from fidgeting, her most hated nervous habit. “Start from the beginning. I need to know everything.”
Chapter Two
If each day is a gift,
can I return last Monday?
—Meme
Garrett filled his lungs and sat back. He would love to know everything. Where, exactly, his best friends were. How he’d fought his way into special forces only to end up a bounty hunter-turned-bodyguard and head of security for a single, solitary being. And how that single, solitary being, a five-going-on-thirty-eight-year-old, could vanish so completely. So absolutely. All the while, leaving no trace of where she went.
He rubbed a hand over his face then started. “We were out walking on that path just past the compound. The one behind the main house.”
“The one that leads to the hot springs?” Marika asked.
He nodded and gave his ex, if one could call her that, a once-over for probably the tenth time since she opened the door. Her short, green robe—as far as short, green robes went—did little to hide her assets. The fact that they were damn nice assets had nothing to do with his admonishing thoughts. He couldn’t help but wonder why she’d considered it a good wardrobe choice for answering a door in the middle of the night. But who knew? Maybe she had late-night visitors often.
Acid flooded his stomach at the thought. He swallowed hard and continued. “Yes. The path to the springs. She was running ahead of me when her bracelet slipped off her wrist.”
“Oh, no.” Marika knew what that bracelet meant to Beep. Hardly a surprise. The pope would’ve known what that bracelet meant to her if he’d taken her calls.
“I found it a few minutes later. No need to worry.”
Her
face, framed by soft, dark blond curls and graced with a wide mouth and dimples even when she wasn’t smiling—a trait he found fascinating—relaxed.
“I slipped it back on and tightened it around her wrist.”
Her tiny wrist. So thin and fragile, he worried he’d break it every time he had to put that damned bracelet back on. But he couldn’t worry about that now.
He slid his brows together in thought, trying to piece together everything he’d spent the last thirty-six hours tearing apart second-by-second.
“And then?” Marika coaxed.
“Then she looked at me and said she wished I could find Osh as easily as I had the bracelet he’d made for her.”
She drew her clasped hands to her chest, ever the romantic. “She loves that bracelet so much.”
“She does. That and her damnable doll. Too much. I’ve never seen a child so…I don’t know, obsessed?” She always carried around her Osh doll. She’d seen it in a shop when she was barely three and swore it was him. Osh’ekiel. A male rag doll with black yarn for hair and a top hat. It resembled the only picture she had of him. The only one they could find.
He regretted ever telling the little imp stories of Osh. She constantly wanted to hear more and more, like a child dreaming of King Arthur, a mythical hero from days gone by.
“She loves him,” Marika said so matter-of-factly, he shot her a curious glare. “Is it so hard to believe a girl could love someone she’s never met?” When he continued to stare, she added, “People do it all the time.” She cleared her throat and dusted off an invisible piece of lint. “You know, with celebrities and sports figures. People like that.”
He’d give her that. Garrett’s gaze traveled to the pyramid-shaped opening where her robe parted at her legs. She had fantastic legs. But the first thing that had grabbed his attention when he met Marika Dubois was her accent. As clichéd as it sounded, he’d heard her voice from behind him in a pub. Warm and husky and tinted with a faint helping of French.
When he turned and saw her, all blond curls and thick lashes, he almost tripped. And he hadn’t even been walking.
But that was her plan. She knew how to get his attention. Knew exactly how to play him, as it turned out. She flashed him a cursory smile, laid a tip on the table she’d been sharing with another man, and got up to leave.
The man had grabbed her wrist. Jerked her closer. Asked where she was going. When she reminded him that she had somewhere to be, he told her—no, ordered her—to sit back down until he dismissed her.
Garrett’s ire skyrocketed so fast he saw stars. Just like she knew it would. The scene was played to orchestral perfection. Each line delivered with just the right pause. Just the right inflection. The man’s expression full of menace. Hers full of fear, yet her chin lifted in defiance.
Garrett had been played like a heated game of Monopoly. Turned out the guy was an actor. And gay. Hardly interested in the damsel in distress.
And then there was Marika. All warmth and gratitude afterward. Garrett had, naturally, saved her from the mustache-twirling villain. Hopefully, the black eye and swollen lip made the actor rethink his choice of jobs in the future.
Of course, Garrett hadn’t known any of that until months later when he saw Marika and a baby at an outdoor market, all sunshine and smiles. Well, all smiles until her gaze met his. She hadn’t smiled at him since.
“Haven’t you ever loved someone from afar?” she asked him.
“No.”
“Are you lying only to me, or to yourself as well?”
Irritation slid up his spine. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
She released a frustrated sigh. “Nothing. Elwyn wished you could find Osh as easily as her bracelet.”
“Yes.” He relaxed his shoulders, still wondering what the hell she’d meant. If anyone was in love with someone else… Then again, Marika didn’t do love. Not monogamous love, anyway. She had too many men in her life to stoop to something so basic. “Osh.” He thought back again. “She wished I could find Osh, and then she twirled around as though looking for him.”
Marika’s brows slid together. “Okay. And then what?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Don’t quote me on this, but I think she said she’d find him.”
“Find who?”
He shrugged again. “Osh, I assume.”
“What?”
“I know how it sounds. But I swear, we were talking about Osh, and she wished I could find him. I wished I could too, but we’ve searched everywhere, and we just don’t know where he is. Then she looked at me with those huge copper eyes, her expression thoughtful, and said, ‘That’s okay. I’ll find him.’ Next thing I knew, she was handing me her Osh doll and running off down the trail.”
“Where she disappeared,” Marika said.
“Where she disappeared.”
“Good heavens.”
“Actually, more likely bad hell. I don’t think a demon would be allowed in heaven, even a slave demon.”
Marika’s eyes rounded. “She wouldn’t… I mean, she can’t. Can she dematerialize like her parents could? Can she actually, you know, go to hell?”
“That’s just it.” Garrett sat up and put his elbows on his knees. “We don’t think she can. Once she found out her mom and dad could, she tried over and over. She has a lot of abilities thanks to her lineage, but she was never able to dematerialize. Then again, Charley didn’t learn that little trick until she was in her late twenties. It could be latent.”
Marika scooted closer to him. “Do you mean Elwyn could have dematerialized?”
He shook his head. “I really don’t think so.”
“But you don’t know for certain?”
“No, I do. It wasn’t like that. When Charley did it, it was instantaneous. She was just suddenly not there.”
“You just said that’s what happened!” Marika stood and paced, her agitation shining through.
“I know, but the more I think about it…this was gradual.”
Marika frowned in thought then sank back onto the divan. “Gradual. Okay. Wait, why were you watching her? I thought you had the graveyard shift since she rarely sleeps.”
“Normally, I do. But the girls’ club was out of town for a bike rally.”
She fought for a smile. “I bet they love being called that.”
Donovan and his cohorts, the last remnants of a fairly infamous biker club called The Bandits, were also part of Elwyn’s security team—which Garrett headed up. It had always surprised Marika that he took the graveyard shift until Donovan told her that Garrett hardly slept either. Said the two of them, Beep and Garrett, made the perfect nocturnal pair.
“The rain’s stopped,” he said, uncurling the towel from his neck and placing it on her heavy wooden coffee table. “I’m wasting time. Can you do your thing or not?”
Marika shot him a glower from beneath her lashes.
His expression changed instantly from irritation to remorse. “Sorry. But can you?”
After another quick glower, she thought about it. “I need to gather a few items. Do you have something of hers? Maybe her Osh doll?”
“It’s in the truck,” he said, rising to his feet. He stretched, raked a hand over his head, then shook it as though trying to stay awake.
He looked haggard, and Garrett never looked anything but magnificent with a side of dangerous, quiet confidence.
“It’ll take me a little while,” she said. “Why don’t you go back to the compound and get some sleep? I’ll call you—”
“I’m fine.” His tone convinced her not to argue. Men. “I’ll get the doll.”
“Thank you. I’m going to”—she looked down at her robe—“slip into something a little more comfortable.”
He raised a brow. Marika rolled her eyes and hurried to her bedroom.
Five minutes later she was in the kitchen, draped in a white gauze tunic and leggings, gathering a couple of things for the journey as she liked to call them. Her grandmother had taugh
t her everything, but she had yet to take a journey without her. The woman’s death still pained her, like a raw wound that refused to heal, even though it had been almost a year.
She took a beer out of the fridge and handed it to Garrett before saying, “Don’t come in.”
“Wait,” he said, taking the beer. “Where are you going?”
“Into my bedroom. I can concentrate better without anyone watching.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.” He handed her the doll.
It always brought a smile to her face. Black yarn for hair. Huge, round eyes. A long, black coat and top hat. Marika realized it was probably supposed to appeal to the vamp crowd. “It’s like a goth Raggedy Andy.”
He laughed softly as though barely able to exert the effort before sitting on the sofa and taking a long draught of beer.
She didn’t even drink beer. She only kept it in the fridge in case he showed up. How pathetic was that? He almost always picked up Zaire from her mother’s house in El Dorado, a village south of Santa Fe, even though it took an extra thirty minutes to make the round trip. Anything to avoid seeing her.
He sank back and let his eyes drift shut as she gathered her supplies.
“She drinks coffee,” he mumbled, the threat of sleep tumbling his thoughts. “Did you know that?”
“Elwyn?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm. And her favorite writer is Stephen King.”
“You let her drink coffee and read Stephen King?”
“You say that like we have a choice. That kid is more stubborn than her mother was.”
She walked over to him, and he opened his eyes enough to see her arms full of tins and vials. “Does she at least take cream and sugar?”
Lowering his lids again, he grinned and simply shook his head. “She drinks it as black as my soul. Her words. It’s the only thing that calms her down. And her favorite book is The Stand. Has been since she was three.”
The Graveyard Shift: A Charley Davidson Novella Page 2